


I Only Want You Next To Me

by tiredly



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Venom (Comics), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Freeform, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-01 21:13:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16291913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiredly/pseuds/tiredly
Summary: If anyone is able to find themselves in a situation like this, it's Eddie Brock. And really, he can't even be mad at himself for it.





	I Only Want You Next To Me

At age eighteen, Eddie acknowledged the idea that his life would be a domino trail of bad ideas and fun impulses with a strangely satisfying outcome, and laughs peppered in between. And now, in his kitchen at one in the morning with a pack of chocolate chip Eggos and an impatient whining in his ear, he realizes that maybe he had been right. That was a first. 

**Let us eat the waffle.**

“It’s not ready yet.”

**Let us eat the waffle.**

“No.” Venom flicks a tendril out of his shoulder that hits him sharply in the ear. “Hey! Stop that. It’s frozen and it’ll hurt my teeth.”

**We can heal you.**

“No. Be patient.”

Venom is quiet for a blessed minute, and Eddie finally rips open the packet. Three frozen toaster waffles fall out. He feels Venom’s head materialize out of his back, hears the breathing from next to his shoulder. “Hey. No funny business, yeah?”

**One.**

“You’re not getting a waffle.”

**Let us get one waffle** . 

“No.”

**Let us get a waffle, Eddie.**

“We aren’t getting anything until you learn how to say please.”

**… can we** **_please_ ** **get a waffle?**

Eddie barks out a surprised laugh, and drops one of them. Venom sees the opportunity, gobbling it up in midair with the reflexes that, apparently, only an alien species could ever have. Eddie knows he should reprimand that - really, he does - but the absurdity of the situation is enough that he finds he can’t even be upset about it.

“You asshole,” he mutters, but he’s smiling, fondly, and he knows that Venom can see the lack of true malice behind his words.

**What is so funny, Eddie?**

“You just referenced a - well, there’s this app called vine, and, I mean, it…” Eddie trails off, snickering some more to himself. “Huh. I don't think I would be able to explain it.”

**It’s important to you?**

“Nah, man. It actually ended years ago,” Eddie mused. “What a time. But, I’ve got to say, even in my twenties, things weren’t nearly as weird as this is.”

**This?**

“I’m making waffles for an extraterrestrial symbiote in my kitchen at one in the morning.” Eddie pops the remaining two in the toaster, still smiling bemusedly. Venom doesn't reply. The clicking sound made by the timer briefly distracts Eddie from the silence next to him, but only briefly. 

One can't live with a voice in their head without getting unsettled by complete silence. “Hey, Venom, what’s wrong?”

**Nothing is wrong.**

“This is the first quiet I’ve gotten all day. Come on. Has the cat got your tongue?”

**A cat could never take our tongue. We are too strong. We would eat it first.** Venom's voice is quieter usual. 

Eddie smiles a bit, but stayed quiet and waits. He will have to talk eventually. A moment passes. 

**Do you really think it is weird?**

Eddie blinks, and turns to look at Venom, who is still materialized near his shoulder. But he’s looking significantly smaller. Eddie frowns. He doesn’t like it. 

“Hey, I didn't mean it like that," Eddie backtracks. "I mean, yeah, the situation’s weird. Of course it is, you know? Humans haven’t made contact with life outside of Earth. Now one is in my house, talking to me.” Venom keeps shrinking, though, so Eddie tries to steer it in a positive direction. “But I don’t mind it. Really.”

**You think... we are weird?**

“Oh, come on, love, of course I don’t. You’re unusual, sure, but every good thing is.” 

The word 'love' slips out of Eddie’s mouth before he can stop himself, without a second thought, as if it was always meant to be there. Because really, wasn't it? Wasn't he always toying with the idea? This outlandish, crazy, perfect little happily ever after - one where he doesn't get the girl, he doesn't get the boy, but he gets the symbiote from another planetary system, and it's wonderful. 

A second passes. Then, a few more. And then, he realizes what he’s said. The waffles pop out. “Fuck, um.”

**Waffles?**

“Jesus, sorry, yeah, buddy. Let’s. Um.” Eddie tries to control himself, to accept the fact that it was always going to happen - he was going to slip up eventually, and he was going to be rejected flatly, because his life is a series of mistakes and laughs before the inevitable crash. He tries to remind himself that  _ of course _ Venom wouldn’t feel the same way. Of course he wouldn’t. He probably didn’t even have love, not on his home planet, probably not within his species. And even if, by some miracle, love wasn’t some artificial human feeling, he could never reciprocate. He had said it on their very first night: Eddie was a loser. 

And Eddie would just have to get over that.

“Let’s have some waffles.”

 

-

 

Eddie can’t sleep tonight. He can barely even close his eyes, because to close them would be to let himself risk not opening them again, and he can’t bear to have any dreams. 

Venom must be annoyed. Eddie is sleep deprived, so Venom is sleep deprived, but it isn’t something he can change. Unless he decides to hit Eddie over the head with something, and knock him out (and with the way he’s squirming every few minutes, Eddie thinks that it might not be a very unlikely outcome). 

**You’re agitated.**

Eddie winces. “Yeah. Sorry, man. I promise… I’m trying.”

**We are not angry, Eddie. We just worry about you.**

“No need. I’ll be asleep soon.”

**If you insist.**

Eddie rolls over, flips his pillow to the cold side, and re-adjusts his blanket. Then tries to will himself unconscious.

Obviously, Venom doesn’t want to confront the problem any more than Eddie does. Which is just as well, really. Eddie is perfectly fine being professional. Friendly. Even content, someday, if he tries. But he can’t help wondering how he so often messes up the beautiful things he has. How it constantly comes down to impulsive thoughts and wishes that he only ever thinks to express in the dark.

What a fucking nightmare this is. He's fallen in love with the parasite inside of him, and still gotten his heart broken. 

**Parasite?**

Eddie freezes. “Um… what?”

**You called us a parasite. We know we are more than that.**

Eddie feels his throat tighten, heart sinking even further into his stomach, and he turns his head to face Venom who has just materialized two feet above him.

“Can you… have you been hearing everything I think?”

**We are you, Eddie. We feel everything. Hear everything.**

"...Everything?" 

**Yes.**

Well, that was wonderful, and truly exactly Eddie's luck. “And that means… you knew all along.”

**Knew?**

“How I felt.”

**We always know how you feel. We are you.**

“No, I mean-” Eddie groans, and runs a hand over his face. He can feel himself getting red. It's unfitting, he thinks, for the stabbing cold that’s spreading through his chest. “You knew how I feel… how I feel about you.”

**Yes.**

Eddie is quiet for a moment, trying to figure out the words to say. He’s a reporter. He’s a master of rhetoric, of speech, of apologies - he’s had a lot of practice. Why is this so hard for him?

Finally, he lets his eyes drop from Venom’s and leans his face on the pillow again. “I’m sorry,” he says.

**Why?**

“I know it must have made you uncomfortable. I know it was unfair of me to entertain it. I just… wasn’t good at figuring things out.” Venom doesn’t say anything. “I’m sorry.”

Silence is an underrated form of torture. Eddie ponders this in the moments that he spends trying to figure out how to convince Venom to stay, how to make him feel better, how to fix things. He comes up empty. 

But he doesn’t struggle for very long.

**You thought we did not know?**

“Yeah. I don’t know. I just hoped, I guess.”

**Eddie.** Eddie looks at Venom again.  **You are the only human we care about. The only thing we care about. We know you. We protect you.**

“And I know that, I promise, and I don’t need anything more than that, I would never-”

**We are you. We think what you think. Taste what you taste.** There’s a moment of filled silence, alive with the electricity in the air between them.  **_Feel_ ** **what you feel.**

Venom allows himself to get smaller, less solid, and rests on the crook of a stunned Eddie’s neck. There is a beat more of the quiet, but it doesn’t feel painful anymore. It doesn’t make Eddie shiver. It is sweet, warm, whole. He brings his hand up to his shoulder, touches a finger to venom, and feels the satisfied hum from the inside of his chest.

**We love you, Eddie.**

At age eighteen, Eddie had acknowledged the idea that his life would be a domino trail of bad ideas and fun impulses with a strangely satisfying outcome. And now, in his bed with legs kicking at the too-thin sheets and his hand touching gently to his future, he realizes that maybe he had been right.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm honestly not sure what I was expecting going into Venom (2018) but I can say with absolute certainty that it was better than I ever could have hoped for.  
> Hang out with me on tumblr at @thebrosefstalin!!  
> Kudos are super appreciated! Comments are read, re-read, replied to, and worshipped.


End file.
